Morecambe wise up to end Worthing’s FA Cup dream in front of record Woodside crowd

The visitors, currently 92nd in the Football League, came straight out of the blocks, and after former Albion scholar Marcus Dackers’ cheeky backheel went agonisingly wide on 4 minutes, his team-mate Jordan Slew opened the scoring with an impressive volley from inside the box, giving Chris Haigh no chance in the Worthing goal.

Despite being behind Worthing grew in confidence as the first period progressed and on 26 minutes Nicky Wheeler thought he’d levelled with a speculative shot from outside the box, only to be denied by Morecambe’s Stuart Moore pulled off arguably one of the saves of the season.

Worthing went close again on 43 minutes when Danny Cashman laid a ball off to Joe Cook, only for the Rebels defender to shoot over. Less than 60 seconds later the Woodside faithful drew their breath again as Alfie Young headed straight at Moore.

Half time, then, and 1-0 to the visitors but it was the hosts who came out stronger after the break, almost looking like the Football League team rather than their opponents.

Fifteen minutes of what seemed like constant pressure followed with Tommy Willard, Glenn Rea and Jack Spong all having opportunities but MoM Moore was equal to their efforts every time, while their defenders had to dig in too.

The clock ticked down and the visitors came back into the game.

On 68 minutes Rhys Williams could have made it 2-0 but his long-range shot from outside the box was parried by Haigh and Dackers’ attempt at the rebound was deflected away for a corner.

A Glen Rea bicycle kick on 78 minutes looks destined to level the score before another unbelievable stop from Moore, consistently the thorn in Worthing’s side.

With fice minutes left Williams should have finished it but his lob with Haigh way out of his goal was cleared on the line by Sam Beard.

But on 88 minutes Williams doubled the visitors’ lead with a close range header.

Worthing certainly entertained their record crowd but this was very much a learning curve for their Football League ambitions. Currently form shows that Morecambe are statiscally the worst team in domestic professional football, so conceivably this could be a National League fixture next season, but they certainly weren’t disgraced.

Every day is very much a school day in the cut and thrust of National League South football.

And… record crowd – yes it was, but long before the days of health and safety, fire certificates and the like, in the 1950s Worthing played University side Pegasus in the FA Amateur cup and Woodside legend goes there were nearly 5,000 around the pitch that day.